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Greeting to America, Op 56

Introduction

Though published only posthumously, Greeting to America, Op 56, was composed for Vieuxtemps’s American tour of 1843–4. As the title suggests, the piece is in the manner of a salute from the Old World to the New: the orchestral introduction and the first violin solo are in fact based on an Italian air. A call to attention by the trumpets, however, leads to a fantasia on ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, after which the basses introduce, and the violin enthusiastically takes up, the lively march-tune of ‘Yankee Doodle’. Vieuxtemps had in fact dealt with this well-known tune before, in his Souvenir d’Amérique, Variations burlesques sur ‘Yankee Doodle’, Op 17, but the bravura variations in the present work are not related to that earlier set. In an imposing coda, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ and ‘Yankee Doodle’ are triumphantly combined.

Recordings

This recording heralds a new collaboration with the brilliant young British violinist Chloë Hanslip, who, alongside the Royal Flemish Philharmonic and Martyn Brabbins, performs Henry Vieuxtemps’ Violin Concertos Nos 1 and 2, virtuoso showpieces pa ...» More